Well I have personal experience with Polarstar, namely that I've played against the Polar Star team and won. In addition an acquaintance of mine has one too.

They are incredible.
They are a game changer.
They kick the shit out of AEGs.
Take an AEG, now give it a battery with insane mah, (power from an external gas tank) standard magazine acceptance, and the option to go with either ridiculous rof, insane fps, or a mix of the two.
Then make it almost impossible to break.
Trust me, they're a huge deal. Play with one and you'll get it real quick.

The only parts you need to have are the different air nozzles for the different fps ranges, and an external tank/setup.

As for the V3. a friend of mine filmed video of them testing it out in a Real Sword (or VFC I forget) AK body. Its almost done.

Oh and those DMR builds are terrifying, far more dangerous than any AEG or bolt action system.

To charge your tank you can go to a paintball field/shop or scuba shop (scuba places only charge up to 3000PSI tanks) and they'll fill a large size tank for about $7. An O2 compressor strong enough to get the right PSI are upwards of $5000. Once you get into things more, you can buy a larger scuba tank and an inexpensive kit so you can charge your external tank from the massive scuba tank as well as selling your O2 to other players.

I know I'm a little late, but what, performance-wise, does a Polar Star do that you couldn't get by buying a much cheaper AEG and a slew of upgrade parts? Being able to change its specs is cool, but the whole air tank thing is (IMO) a step in the wrong direction. While I bet they definitely have great performance, I haven't seen anything online to indicate they're better than what your $650 plus the tank price plus the long-term gas price would get you with AEGs.

I know I'm a little late, but what, performance-wise, does a Polar Star do that you couldn't get by buying a much cheaper AEG and a slew of upgrade parts? Being able to change its specs is cool, but the whole air tank thing is (IMO) a step in the wrong direction. While I bet they definitely have great performance, I haven't seen anything online to indicate they're better than what your $650 plus the tank price plus the long-term gas price would get you with AEGs.

Consistency in fps, extreme durability, and longer lasting than a standard AEG.
In addition, messing with the fire computer can change not only your fps, but your rps which isn't possible in an aeg.
With a Polarstar, you can go for a high fps and high rps build, without having to worry about breaking things. They can fire faster than any magazine can keep up with if you want them to, and still fire at field FPS limits. And since they're so consistent in their power, you get a lot more accuracy with your shots.

When you upgrade most AEG's the chances of things breaking go through the roof, especially if you don't have a lot of experience. The only thing that wears down with the Polarstar are cheap o-rings, and those are less than a dollar. When you don't have to worry about replacing expensive internals, they get cheaper over an upgraded gun in the long term.

Also, HPA is really damn cheap, like $8 for a fill up on a tank, and that tank can last a really long time, several thousand shots to be sure.

So basically, take an AEG, make it extremely consistent in its fps outputs, have it exceed an AEG in terms of fps and/or rps, and make it not break.

What exactly do you mean by consistency in FPS? All of the decently built AEGs I've seen have very slight variation in FPS, no more than 5 off the average. I personally haven't experienced accuracy problems as a result of varying FPS and can't understand how FPS would vary any more with a spring setup than a gas one, so I really have to wonder if that's more a marketing gimmick than a demonstrable advantage. As for durability, again, that's really a factor of what's going into the gun. I know a guy with a TM P90 that's lasted something like ten years, and with a $700 budget you could assemble a pretty reliable and powerful build.

Although I will say that I am somewhat curious about the drop-in M60 mechbox their site says they're working on, because a decent gas LMG would be cool.

No. Consitant fps for a DMR would be less than 0.5 fps variation. 5 is kind of bad to be honest.

Every guide I see online says DMRs should shoot for 2-3FPS deviation at most. 5 for an assault rifle doesn't seem unreasonable, especially considering even the lauded TMs have been measured with +/-7FPS. I haven't seen anyone boast sub-1FPS variation on their custom builds. If you have such a gun (and I'm not saying you don't) you'd be the first I've ever heard of, and I don't think that would exactly set the standard.

My question is why the P* should have much better consistency over, say, a bolt-action springer. The air nozzle and hop-up mechanisms are the same, which to my knowledge are where most inconsistency comes from in decent setups. If it's firing open bolt, it's still chambering just before firing in the same manner as an AEG. Is spring compression really less consistent than a mechanical valve?

The P* runs off of a solenoid system if I recall correctly, the same kind of thing used in the infamous Asahi WA2000. 1FPS or less variations for these are expected, and while the Polar Star isn't that fine tuned, its not far off.
Rather than using a cylinder which has to move an extremely exact distance each and every shot, a stationary cylinder is filled with air, and the dual regulator rig you use ensures its at a very exact PSI.

Its all about the amount of air going through your system, so you have to get a perfect airseal as well as an identical amount of airflow.

I don't know how they compare to a well built springer, but I can tell you that you can fire off a significant amount more shots on a P* than a springer in the same amount of time.
One shot one kill really doesn't work well in airsoft anyways, so that's why most people prefer to go with semiauto systems if they know what's up.

You can get semi, full auto, and multi round bursts with some of the best consistency, performance and durability of any kind of airsoft gun.

Ah, that makes sense. Like I said, if they end up releasing one for the M60 I might seriously consider it, as being able to fine-tune an LMG for short-range spray or long-range suppression would be really handy, along with the recoil and intimidation of a GBBR. The big question for me is whether it would be cheaper to just buy a second MG (!) and build it to complement the one I have.

You've gotta remember, these aren't really gas guns like you know them, they're basically classics.
There is no recoil and they aren't loud, think of it more like a very adaptable LMG with substantially lower wear and a much longer duration. The only issue is that you'll be firing so much that you could run out of air, and tanks are expensive.
If you really wanted to be confident, you could buy a SCUBA or larger tank, as those hold a ridiculous amount of air, and you can charge other players for fillups in addition to keeping yourself topped off, but that's a real investment.

You've gotta remember, these aren't really gas guns like you know them, they're basically classics.
There is no recoil and they aren't loud, think of it more like a very adaptable LMG with substantially lower wear and a much longer duration. The only issue is that you'll be firing so much that you could run out of air, and tanks are expensive.
If you really wanted to be confident, you could buy a SCUBA or larger tank, as those hold a ridiculous amount of air, and you can charge other players for fillups in addition to keeping yourself topped off, but that's a real investment.

Right, forgot about the recoil thing. SCUBA might be a bit overkill, but I do wonder how the efficiency would be. I mean, since it's adjustable, a low rate of fire and decent FPS would probably last a good while. Durability and no danger of overheat would be very useful to have in a MG.

Oh, I'm not sure I was clear, I don't think you can use a SCUBA tank directly on your rig, you keep it in your car so that way you can fill up your own tank anytime you need to, that way you don't need to worry about running out of air over the course of a multi day op.

Although building an APS amphibious rifle around a P* and running around in a wetsuit and SCUBA gear all day could be pretty cool.

Been a while since I peeked on this sub forum, just going to say, thank you for using my definition of the tech in your post.
And Jat, excellent post, I assume people on this subforum are more knowledgeable about their gearboxes than before.

And going to stick something for you guys, coming right up my personal work tool kit :
(The picture lacks my soldering iron, my dremel and a few other things I use to work on my car too. But is a complete kit by itself.)

My advice, jeweler tools, you are going to face many tiny bits in your all around toy gun smiting.

(I am just leaving this picture here, as I had it on my cellphone already, and well, since I am posting here for once in a while, might as well do it.)

The toolkit I use at work is, obviously more complete than that by a few tools, but is similar.

For the actual work place
- Some large surface, preferably painted in a bright color, for example red.
- A portion of the work surface could be a grip rubber mat, but it is preferable to have a good part of the workplace hard, right on the wood.
-It is useful to put small lips around the workplace, in case you have runny bits.
- A small bench vice with put over rubbery/plastic grips
- A good light source above the workplace is really good.
- A comfortable bench
- Racks and toolbox to make sure you stay clean all the time
- Cloths to clean your hands

This sums up a big part of what you need to have a complete gunsmith workplace. You might want personal preference tools, but that is what I've been using for the most, I may have missed things, but that sums most of it.

Haven't left facepunch, just switched interests, mainly been hanging in the AA subforum and been really busy with school, nearly done with my program, should hopefully be working on a real career at the end of May. Can't wait.

Haven't left facepunch, just switched interests, mainly been hanging in the AA subforum and been really busy with school, nearly done with my program, should hopefully be working on a real career at the end of May. Can't wait.

Dboys/VFC AK-74M, V3 gearbox, the hop-up unit comes out without having to remove the barrel, right?
There's videos of people taking the barrel out, and there's others that they just pop it out with a screwdriver

Dboys/VFC AK-74M, V3 gearbox, the hop-up unit comes out without having to remove the barrel, right?
There's videos of people taking the barrel out, and there's others that they just pop it out with a screwdriver

you pop the trunnion pin hammer the front half of the gun out undo the two screws holding the hopup in and take it out

Disturbing.
Shouldn't all AEG springs be the same length with different amounts of tension and bends to add power?
That pink one seems like it would be partially compressed at all times and destroy your gearbox in addition to rapidly compressing the spring.